Irish-born, Melbourne-based late bloomer DC Cardwell has gathered devoted fans around the globe with his smart, melodic songs, affecting voice, and skillful, inventive guitar playing. Often referred to as a blend of music icons such as The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Ray Davies, Ron Sexsmith & Neil Young, but influenced by a multitude of music styles, DC likes to describe his music as Omnipop.
DC is a triple threat singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, and he sealed his credentials by taking out BOTH top prizes in the Australian Catapult Song Contest in 2011 with his profoundly moving song I Am Still The Same. The home-made video for this song has also gathered plaudits around the world, and, remarkably for a zero-budget film, was an official selection of both the Socal and Newport Beach Film Festivals.
DCs distinctive and affecting voice is perfect for his songs which take an honest and often wry look at life, peppered with positivity and redemptive possibility. Combine that with his maddeningly catchy hooks, pop-smart arrangements and melodic lead guitar breaks and you have Beatlesque songs that you will want to hear again and again.
Some Hope
DCs self-produced debut album Some Hope was released in the US in 2010, and met with glowing reviews internationally. Of the record, Aaron Kupferberg from Powerpopaholic wrote,
DC Cardwell creates a heartfelt gem here, full of wonderful melodic hooks and a Ray Davies styled vocal. The gentle minor chords and harmonies that open I Am Still The Same are both brilliant and poignant. Birthday Present is another example of solid composition and a revelatory Harrison styled guitar break. Some of the mid-tempo ballads are like magical combinations of both Paul Simon and McCartney.
Los Angeles & Film Music
The success of the album also paved the way for other opportunities abroad. In 2010 noted Hollywood music supervisor/film composer Jaymee Carpenter (The Fighter, Crime After Crime) heard one of his songs (Birthday Present) on a Youtube video and immediately invited DC to L.A. to record six of his songs for use in his film projects. Jaymees reaction to DCs music is worth noting, and is quoted here with permission:
I am seriously blown away by your album. I think it may be the greatest thing Ive heard in years! I dont want to freak you out, but Im drooling over here. You just easily became my favorite new artist!
Growing up in Northern Ireland during the Troubles shaped DCs formative years. In 1988 he emigrated to Vancouver with his wife, gifted singer-songwriter Marjorie Cardwell, and their young son, Joel. In the vibrant alternative milieu of the Pacific Northwest in the early 1990s Marjorie played her own songs in the rock clubs of Vancouver, with DC on lead guitar, described in one review as her secret weapon. They moved to Australia in the 1996, along with their second son, Samuel, and settled in Melbourne, widely regarded as Australias musical and cultural centre.
DCs Transition
While DC had played guitar for Marjorie for many years, soon after arriving in Australia she retired temporarily from music to pursue university studies. So it wasnt until 2003, as their two boys were growing up and also learning to play, that DC began to sing and write his own songs. DC would spend long hours jamming with the kids and, to avoid the dead-end of interminable 12-bar blues workouts, he would take on vocal duties. Initially reluctant to sing lead, he found that he started to strengthen and develop his own voice, and this new development finally allowed his own songwriting experiments to blossom as he could, at last, instantly translate his ideas into sound.
In 2011 DCs song I Am Still The Same was selected from over 3000 original song entries Australia wide to win both the Overall Prize and the Judges Favourite award in the nationwide Catapult Song Contest.
Not only that, but the remarkable video for the song was selected for two US Film Festivals.
You can see the stunning, heart-wrenching video for the song here: http://youtu.be/AnTNQGj3yuI
I am doing the Beatles thing in reverse. These are my "studio years", and after I am supremely successful I plan to "pay my dues" and fend off hordes of screaming fans.
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Almost all of the electric guitar on the recordings is my Epiphone Dot Deluxe, and all the bass is my ancient Grant copy of a Hofner bass.
My favourite guitar is my Mugen "The '78" acoustic. I have never played a guitar anywhere that looks and sounds so good and suits me so perfectly. Unfortunately, some years ago, it got badly smashed, but the good people at Rufus Guitar Shop in Vancouver fixed it up and it sounds as good as ever!
I also have a Tanglewood acoustic, and a very early Fender Squier "62 Strat" (one of the brilliant Japanese ones) that I bought new in 1982, however, it's in pretty bad shape and I haven't had a guitar tech look at since I bought it. In the last two years I have, for some reason, acquired four Aria instruments at different times for very little money! An Aria FA71 arch-top, an Aria bass and two of those super-cheap Aria "Django" guitars! None of them are on any of my recordings, but lately I've been playing a lot of Django Reinhardt-style "Manouche" gypsy jazz guitar duels with SW Cardwell.
My drumkit is a beautiful orange dDrum kit.
